Fired FBI Director James Comey will testify to Congress on Thursday that he did not tell President Donald Trump multiple times that he is not under investigation, CNN reports.
That is at odds with the president's own words to Comey in the letter he wrote firing him on May 9.
"I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation," Trump wrote.
Comey will tell the Senate Intelligence Committee that he never gave any such assurances because it would not be proper to do so, an unnamed source familiar with Comey's testimony told CNN.
Comey's agency was investigating possible ties between the Russian government and members of Trump's staff before his firing, but one CNN source said Comey will offer no conclusions about that probe but serve only as a "fact witness."
Comey and special prosecutor Robert Mueller met to discuss how much Comey could say to avoid tainting the probe Mueller now leads.
It is not clear, CNN reported, whether Comey will read from memos he wrote after his meetings with Trump or whether he will give the memos to Congress.
In one memo that has been leaked to the press, Comey wrote that Trump told him, in relation to his probe of former national security adviser Michael Flynn's role, "I hope you can let this go."
Comey has said his personal opinions of Trump don't matter to his investigation, but has said Trump's requests for him to back off investigations made him uncomfortable.
Still, CNN noted, Comey did not see any individual instance as Trump doing anything that could be seen as obstruction of justice. Rather, he viewed them as instances of the political neophyte not realizing that what he was asking was improper.
And, Comey reportedly believed, Trump was capable of being taught the proper means of communicating with him. Whether those instances taken together would amount to obstruction would be up to others to decide.
"At the end of this, will some people jump up and down and say there's an obstructing offense?" one source said. "Some might, but that's a political judgment, not a legal one."
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